Any ideas on the Paris riots?

I want a clean world just like the next person. I reduce, reuse and recycle whenever possible. I do these things because they're common sense to me. With that said, I think anyone would have to admit that in reality, "climate-change" mandates in the form of national and global legislation are the perfect means to control the behavior and lives of humans. It's the ultimate vehicle for controlling people on a global level.

- The reason is open ended and nebulous enough to remain the basis for control literally in perpetuity. - Being an issue that affects the planet, the need for "global change" provides impetus for global control. The issue removes the barrier of sovereignty.- In addition to being nebulous, the issue also provides flexibility to increase control as needed (e.g. escalation to "crisis" level could be the basis for more extreme control measures.- It's an issue that can't be effectively debated or argued against by the "common man". Opposition to the issue can always be labeled as ignorance and those in power, by way of a scientific "consensus", can always remain the authority. - Measures to combat "climate change" can also be extremely varied and therefore influence and encompass many different aspects of people's lives (e.g. lifestyle, consumption, sociological, geographical, financial, educational, psychological and reproductive) all under the imperative of "climate change" and globally so.

By pointing out these things above, I'm not intending on debating the merits or lack thereof of acting on "climate change". Instead, I want to point out that even a hard core believer in climate change action can't deny the above points being true, that: Climate change is the ultimate vehicle for controlling people on a global level. I didn't read that somewhere, I think it's just obvious.

_________________"There is no love of living without despair of life." - Albert Camus

Max Jerry Horowitz: "P.S. Do not worry about not smiling. My mouth hardly ever smiles. But it does not mean I am not smiling inside my brain."

But it is not an accident that climate-change policies were, in the French case, the spark that lit the populist flame. Because environmentalism has always been a central feature of the new elitism, a means through which a self-styled virtuous political class could demonstrate its eco-awareness by shaming and punishing those who drive cars to work, or work in polluting industries, or fail to recycle their rubbish.

The political class is not what brought environmentalism; rather this is coming from scientists showing there is problems, and the militancy organizations that followed. The political class constantly fought against the necessary reforms, and only took some shy measures; and now things are worst that ever, as oil industry and an anti-intellectual bred of conservatives turned better at propaganda that the scientists caring about rational discourses and truth, thus turning the population, not only against a disconnected political elite, but also against those who try to protect the population.

My thought was that if Hillary had been elected, this is exactly what would be happening in the US.

100%

_________________"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"

_________________"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"

It has so much more to it than taxes, this just tipped people over the edge. The people in the West have had enough. Macron was sold as some outsider and now people realise they just voted in another establishment figure who wants an EU army. He bombed Syria over a YouTube video. He had a childish tantrum when he was asked about France's relationship with the Saudis. People in Europe have had enough of the third world being poured into their country's too.

If Brexit is overturned this will happen in the UK too.

_________________"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"

I want a clean world just like the next person. I reduce, reuse and recycle whenever possible. I do these things because they're common sense to me. With that said, I think anyone would have to admit that in reality, "climate-change" mandates in the form of national and global legislation are the perfect means to control the behavior and lives of humans. It's the ultimate vehicle for controlling people on a global level.

- The reason is open ended and nebulous enough to remain the basis for control literally in perpetuity. - Being an issue that affects the planet, the need for "global change" provides impetus for global control. The issue removes the barrier of sovereignty.- In addition to being nebulous, the issue also provides flexibility to increase control as needed (e.g. escalation to "crisis" level could be the basis for more extreme control measures.- It's an issue that can't be effectively debated or argued against by the "common man". Opposition to the issue can always be labeled as ignorance and those in power, by way of a scientific "consensus", can always remain the authority. - Measures to combat "climate change" can also be extremely varied and therefore influence and encompass many different aspects of people's lives (e.g. lifestyle, consumption, sociological, geographical, financial, educational, psychological and reproductive) all under the imperative of "climate change" and globally so.

By pointing out these things above, I'm not intending on debating the merits or lack thereof of acting on "climate change". Instead, I want to point out that even a hard core believer in climate change action can't deny the above points being true, that: Climate change is the ultimate vehicle for controlling people on a global level. I didn't read that somewhere, I think it's just obvious.

I can certainly follow your reasoning. If climate change were used in that manner by power hungry people. But climate change is being rejected by the political movements.

The sad truth is humans are not smart enough to understand complex topics and not cooperative enough to act globally. Anyone who studies biology and anthropology over time can see that, barring some unforeseen event/intervention, humans will continue on their current path and there will be wholesale destruction of the environment, ie, the part that makes earth livable. Perhaps some will escape to Mars, perhaps some will wall themselves into areas they can guard and protect, but that too will not work forever. Perhaps aliens will arrive and rescue us. But life as we know it will not continue for much longer.

_________________I've been crazy, couldn't you tell?I threw stones at the stars and the whole sky fell.

I want a clean world just like the next person. I reduce, reuse and recycle whenever possible. I do these things because they're common sense to me. With that said, I think anyone would have to admit that in reality, "climate-change" mandates in the form of national and global legislation are the perfect means to control the behavior and lives of humans. It's the ultimate vehicle for controlling people on a global level.

- The reason is open ended and nebulous enough to remain the basis for control literally in perpetuity. - Being an issue that affects the planet, the need for "global change" provides impetus for global control. The issue removes the barrier of sovereignty.- In addition to being nebulous, the issue also provides flexibility to increase control as needed (e.g. escalation to "crisis" level could be the basis for more extreme control measures.- It's an issue that can't be effectively debated or argued against by the "common man". Opposition to the issue can always be labeled as ignorance and those in power, by way of a scientific "consensus", can always remain the authority. - Measures to combat "climate change" can also be extremely varied and therefore influence and encompass many different aspects of people's lives (e.g. lifestyle, consumption, sociological, geographical, financial, educational, psychological and reproductive) all under the imperative of "climate change" and globally so.

By pointing out these things above, I'm not intending on debating the merits or lack thereof of acting on "climate change". Instead, I want to point out that even a hard core believer in climate change action can't deny the above points being true, that: Climate change is the ultimate vehicle for controlling people on a global level. I didn't read that somewhere, I think it's just obvious.

I can certainly follow your reasoning. If climate change were used in that manner by power hungry people. But climate change is being rejected by the political movements.

The sad truth is humans are not smart enough to understand complex topics and not cooperative enough to act globally. Anyone who studies biology and anthropology over time can see that, barring some unforeseen event/intervention, humans will continue on their current path and there will be wholesale destruction of the environment, ie, the part that makes earth livable. Perhaps some will escape to Mars, perhaps some will wall themselves into areas they can guard and protect, but that too will not work forever. Perhaps aliens will arrive and rescue us. But life as we know it will not continue for much longer.

Just tonight I see these headlines:

"UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa: 'This reality is telling us that we need to do much more...The impacts of climate change are increasingly hard to ignore. We require deep transformations of our economies and societies.'

'Failure to act will be catastrophic' - "A failure to act now risks pushing us beyond a point of no return with catastrophic consequences for life as we know it," said Amjad Abdulla, chief negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, of the UN talks."

I agree with you that someone/people with the best of intentions (ie save life on the planet) may actually have the best of intentions. However, history has shown over and over that "good" ideas of epic scale are co-opted by power mad people for evil under the guise of good, or even convincing themselves that they're doing good.

There is potential danger here.

_________________"There is no love of living without despair of life." - Albert Camus

Max Jerry Horowitz: "P.S. Do not worry about not smiling. My mouth hardly ever smiles. But it does not mean I am not smiling inside my brain."

Having been expected to attend COP24 in Poland on Monday 3 (December), French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe cancelled his visit and instead held an increasing number of meetings with French MPs and ministers.

This resulted in a decision to back down on the French carbon tax, which has been criticised by the ‘yellow vests’ since the movement started a month ago.

It seems that the increasing tension, demonstrations and violence, and particularly the support of the French population for the ‘yellow vests’ movement – which is still strong – are the reasons for this U-turn, which will take the form of a freeze on the tax increase scheduled for January 2019.

The tax was supposed to increase from €55 to €88 per tonne of CO2 emitted on this date.

Given the social and economic cost of the ‘yellow vests’ movement, the carbon tax appears to be a small price to pay for the French executive.

Between the damage caused and the loss of earnings due to the blocked refineries, or the storming of town centres on Saturday (1 December), just as French people were doing their Christmas shopping, provisionally abandoning the carbon tax now seems to be an acceptable concession. The tax represents €5 billion a year for the French state in 2018 and was expected to rise in 2019.

The fault line runs between anti-carbon policies and economic growth, and France is a test for the political future of emissions restrictions. France already is a relatively low-carbon economy, with per-capita emissions half Germany’s as of 2014. French governments have nonetheless pursued an “ecological transition” to further squeeze carbon emissions from every corner of the French economy. The results are visible in the Paris streets.

President Emmanuel Macron and his Socialist predecessor François Hollande targeted auto emissions because they account for about 40% of France’s carbon emissions from fuel combustion compared to 21% in Germany. But this is mainly because France relies heavily on nuclear power for electricity. Power generation and heating account for only 13% of French emissions, compared to 44% across the Rhine. French road-transport emissions were a mere 0.4% of global carbon emissions in 2016, when overall French emissions were less than 1%.

Yet Paris insists on cutting more, though transport emissions are notoriously hard to reduce. Cleaner engines or affordable hybrids have been slow to emerge. Undeterred, Mr. Macron pushed ahead with a series of punitive tax hikes to discourage driving.

The protesters in Paris will be expected to pay much of the up to €8 billion annual tab for a minuscule global benefit—that’s how much tax revenue Mr. Macron thinks his levies will raise. This is preposterous in an economy that still has an 8.9% jobless rate (21.5% for the young) and will struggle to hit 2% annual GDP growth. Yellow Vests from less prosperous rural areas, who depend on cars for daily life, know it. They’re insulted when Mr. Macron tells them to wait for better public transport or to carpool—yes, he really said that. They also assume that Paris will waste a fuel-tax windfall on boondoggles such as unreliable renewable power to replace zero-emissions nuclear plants.

Benjamin Cauchy, a leader of the "free yellow vests", has welcomed as the government's announcement of a moratorium on the carbon tax as a first step, but said that the demands of the protest movement are much wider called for continued, peaceful protests next Saturday.

"This is only a first step. The French do not wish to have just crumbs, like sparrows at the edge of a window in the middle of winter" said Benjamin Cauchy, the co-signatory of the "free yellow vests." "We want the whole baguette," he said in response to Prime Minister Edouard Philippe's announcement of a moratorium on the carbon tax which freezes the upcoming rise of fuel taxes...

Yesterday, Macron suspended his sharp rise in diesel taxes. Yet his behaviour over the past fortnight embodies what is wrong with the attitude of so many world leaders towards climate change. First, he ignored the protests of those whose livelihoods have been compromised by fuel taxes, many of whom live in rural areas and have little choice other than to rely on fossil fuel-powered road vehicles. Then he berated them for their un-eco choices. Meanwhile, his own carbon footprint swelled like that of a gourmand with gout as he jetted off around the world to attend summits and sumptuous dinners with other world leaders. Mr Macron is very good at lecturing the rest of us on what we need to do to save the planet, but his own lifestyle seems to be exempt from scrutiny.

When world leaders gather at climate summits they love to issue communiques saying that they are out to help the world’s poor – making out it is they who will suffer most from climate change if nothing is done. But it is not just the gilets jaunes who can see that the opposite is true: it is the efforts to tackle climate change which are harming the poor – while filling the pockets of the wealthy.

For the less well-off in developed nations, the battle against climate change promises fuel poverty, and the loss of personal transportation as petrol and diesel vehicles are priced off the road before being banned altogether. It means huddling in cold homes – according to Ofgem [government Office of Gas and Electricity Markets], environmental and social levies will add nearly 10 per cent to fuel bills this year.

For the better-off, on the other hand, it means a feast of subsidies. Here in Britain, for example, taxpayers will stump up £3,500 [$4,480] towards your new 150 mph Tesla (you even get the subsidy if it is your second or third car). If you have the capital to install an eco heating system in your mansion, under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) you can claim £10,000 a year [$12,800 a year] or more in public cash to run it– the Northern Irish version of RHI, which helped bring down the Stormont assembly, was so generous that it led to stories of farmers heating their barns, and leaving the doors wide open so that they could maximise the payments. If you own land you could be pocketing £350,000 a year [$448,000 a year] in wind farm subsidies – that was the sum earned by Sir Reginald Sheffield in 2011 while his son-in-law, David Cameron, was hugging huskies and hiking the fuel bills of ordinary people in order to pay for the handouts.

More than 150 schools and France’s oldest university were blockaded today amid an escalating revolt against President Macron.

Demonstrators, many of them teenagers, put up barricades in front of sixth-form colleges in Paris and other cities as they joined a movement that began as a protest against fuel duties but which is now a general expression of discontent with Mr Macron and the ruling class.

In Marseilles, southern France, three lycées were shut as a preventive measure amid fears of further violence. In the capital, pupils set light to bins and put padlocks on school gates. Sorbonne University in Paris was also closed after a group of activists tried to storm the building at dawn. They were removed by guards who locked the doors.

_________________________________

After announcing a six-month freeze on fuel duties on Tuesday in an attempt to appease popular anger, Mr Macron backtracked again last night and scrapped next year’s rises altogether.